The five-day festival, presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, will highlight a slew of both American and French cultural influencers—including filmmaker Ryan Coogler, Studio Museum in Harlem curator Thelma Golden and novelist Darryl Pinckney—to discuss subjects ranging from immigration to what it means to be Black in each nation.

“Our vehicle for this understanding will be the arts—dance, music, literature, film and the visual arts,” Coates said in a statement. “These questions of identity have been tackled ad infinitum by those interested in sociology and electoral politics. But art shapes the imagination and outlines the sense of what is possible. It is art that attacks and interrogates our labels and chosen names and reduces us to our common humanity.”